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Airspace Q1 2018: From the DG

22 February 2018

Jeff Poole looks back at 10 years of Airspace

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Airspace magazine. It was launched to inform both CANSO Members and the wider aviation community – airlines, airports, and manufacturers – about the key issues and challenges facing the ATM industry.

Tackling high-level policy discussions and featuring senior industry interviews and in-depth articles on technology and operations, it has become a must-read for individuals across the ATM and aviation industries.

Over the past 10 years, Airspace has sought to reflect the changing face and progress of the ATM industry. Looking back at early editions, it is impressive to see how far we have come but also interesting to see how many issues continue to challenge us. Understandably we are still progressing complex, long-term initiatives like the Single European Sky and NextGen but we can also see that in other areas, the pace of change has really increased. Articles looking at integrated glass towers have given way to ones on remote and digital towers; news on way points has been replaced by free route airspace developments; and discussion is on space based ADS-B rather than modernising radars.

Overall the aviation and the ATM industries are in far better shape than they were in 2008. Back then the economic slump saw traffic down 6%, high oil prices and airline industry losses of $5 billion leading to reduced revenues for ANSPs, increases in ATM charges and redundancies in ANSPs. Now we have just seen the best ever year for airlines with profits forecast at over $38 billion for 2018 and a healthy forecast growth in passenger traffic to 4.3 billion. The air traffic management industry has risen to the challenge of safely handling traffic growth of over 5% a year by constantly striving to improve efficiency, productivity, innovation and safety performance – as highlighted in CANSO's latest Global Air Navigation Services Performance Report and safety benchmarking work.

A decade ago airlines, airports and ANSPs were constantly complaining about each other and there was a distinct lack of understanding. Now all parts of the industry work with a greater sense of partnership across a whole range of issues from enhancing safety to improving the efficiency of airspace to tackling challenges such as new entrants to airspace.

There is no doubt the industry has changed and adapted significantly since we first started producing this magazine. Like the industry it supports, Airspace is constantly adapting and improving to meet the changing demands of its readership. It has become an authoritative source of information on trends and technologies in ATM, and we are proud to share our 10th birthday edition with you. So please, continue reading, keep sharing your views and look forward to a bright and exciting future for ATM.